I stopped trusting page views six months ago.

Not because I wanted to. Because the data forced me to.

When you run a marketing agency, you live and die by metrics. Page views. Click-through rates. Impressions. These numbers told us whether campaigns worked.

Then AI overviews arrived and everything broke.

The Invisible Collapse

Google searches now serve AI-generated summaries at the top of results. ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, they all do the same thing.

Users get their answers without clicking.

Research shows a 34.5% drop in click-through rates when AI overviews appear. That’s not a dip. That’s a collapse.

Zero-click searches jumped from 56% to 69% in just one year. Your content gets consumed, but your analytics show nothing.

Page Views Are Ghost Metrics

Here’s the part that keeps me up at night.

Over 40% of web traffic is bots. AI crawlers land on pages, scan content, extract data, and leave. Your dashboard shows traffic. Your bank account shows reality.

I was tracking page views for a med spa client last quarter. Traffic looked strong. Conversions flatlined.

When I dug deeper, half the “visitors” were AI systems indexing content for LLM training. Real humans? They never clicked through because Google’s AI overview answered their question.

Traditional metrics can’t distinguish between a bot and a buyer.

What Actually Matters Now

I rebuilt our entire measurement system around two things: LLM visibility and conversions.

LLM visibility means showing up in AI-generated answers. When someone asks ChatGPT or Google’s AI about hormone replacement therapy in Colorado, does your business appear in that response?

You can’t measure this with Google Analytics.

So we built BuzFlo to track it. The system analyzes how AI overviews structure information, then creates content that matches that format. We incorporate Q&A sections because that’s what LLMs surface. We highlight specific solutions with comparative data because that’s what gets featured.

Then we push that content across channels. Social signals matter because LLMs are trained on diverse data sources, not just your website.

Conversions Over Clicks

The second shift is brutal in its simplicity.

Stop celebrating clicks. Track conversions.

We measure form submissions, phone number clicks (specifically the tel: protocol, not the display number), and appointment bookings. These actions indicate intent.

When I audit a new client’s site, I don’t ask about traffic anymore. I ask how many leads converted last month and where they came from. Most business owners can’t answer that question with precision.

That’s the problem.

The Uncomfortable Truth

I do cold outreach to med spas and wellness clinics. I record Loom videos showing them how their site ranks in AI systems versus traditional search.

Most don’t realize they’re invisible where it matters.

When I explain this shift, some resist. They want to keep tracking what they’ve always tracked. But receptiveness doesn’t matter when the market moves without you.

Google is terrified of losing search dominance to ChatGPT and Perplexity. That’s why AI overviews exist. Within a year, most searches will happen through LLM interfaces.

Your metrics need to reflect that reality.

How To Adapt

Start by connecting your search behavior to your customers’ behavior.

When you need an answer, do you click through ten blue links? Or do you read the AI summary and move on?

Your customers do the same thing.

Audit your content for LLM visibility. Use tools that show whether AI systems surface your brand when relevant queries appear. Optimize for that, not keyword density.

Then ruthlessly track conversions. Not clicks. Not impressions. Actual business outcomes.

The thirty-thousand-foot view matters now. Backlinks still help, but they’re one signal among many. Content format, multi-channel distribution, and conversion architecture matter more.

What Comes Next

Traditional SEO isn’t dead. It’s evolving faster than most agencies can adapt.

The metrics that built your dashboard are becoming irrelevant. Page views don’t tell you if AI systems recommend your business. Click-through rates don’t capture conversations happening inside ChatGPT.

I’m not chasing vanity metrics anymore. I’m building measurement systems that connect to revenue.

That’s what actually matters.

The shift is already here. Your metrics just haven’t caught up yet.